dollissimo

Posted on August 4, 2010 by PaulB

I have been working for the last couple of weeks on a new community site for doll collectors. I admit that might seem a little odd to anyone who doesn’t know – and odder still, because I don’t actually collect dolls. I appreciate the artistic intent in their creation and the distillation of their personality into the final form they assume – but I don’t myself collect ‘em.

I have, for some time, run a site called dollSearcher that originally ran on a content management framework called PHPNuke. I appreciated the simplicity of the version I created the site with, but then the owner of the script started developing it in directions I didn’t really want or need. I stuck with the old version and did the best I could to keep it running and secure; but, eventually, PHP itself shifted a version, or two, and the functionality of the site started to fail. I consider myself aware of PHP and can program a little, but I certainly didn’t have the skills necessary to upgrade the whole site.

So, I decided to shift on to a new platform and used Drupal. I appreciate the flexibility of Drupal as a content management system – and I use it on other sites; but, for this doll site, where the key activity was chat and picture albums, Drupal seemed like overkill. dollSearcher lost its lustre in name and form.

Here in the present, I formulated a new idea and decided to run with it. I found a new system to run the site on – a BuddyPress enabled WordPress installation – and designed a theme, almost from scratch. WordPress supports the essential purpose of discussion – someone posts a blog entry and others can comment. BuddyPress puts a community spin on this, introducing groups and forums. The combination creates a sort of Facebook vibe.

dollissimo is born… a new platform, a new name and a new purpose. Creating the look of the site has been a bit of a bitch, but BuddyPress/WordPress supports child theme creation, so you can do a lot yourself and fall back on the parent for everything else. I appreciate the help this parent has offered – and, over time, hope to give the child a little more independence. Now I have to get my head in search engine marketing mode and disseminate a few invites. Getting a buzz going and assumulating some presence in the search engines will be good, but take time – but, in the meantime, I can iron out any bugs in the theme.

All good fun!

Posted in New Ideas, Web Design | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Do To-Do

Posted on August 2, 2010 by PaulB

Yes, I’m finding it easier to get things done with a to-do list. Mind you, having tried to use two or three on the iPhone, I’ve realised it needs to be desktop or paper-based. Unless I can find a good one that effectively stretches across iPhone and desktop in a seamless, sync’d-in fashion.

Having a to-do list isn’t the end of it. I need to be conscientious about keeping it up-to-date and reasonable for a start. If I have more than about half-a-dozen things on there, for example, I know that I’m heading for a loser. Half-a-dozen means I can be working on a couple of things now, a couple of things then, and a final two soon. Planning more than that means planning too far ahead – and the moment you do that you lose some of the impetus. A sort of claustrophobia sets in and I feel crowded out by the enormity of whatever I’m expecting from myself.

So, I have a very simple tool – TaskMate – that represents little more than an electronic tick-list. I could do it on paper – but then I’d lose it. If I have the tasks set down on my desktop and they’re there every start-up… I’m keenly aware of them.

And, I don’t like to refill the list until I’ve got all half-a-dozen tasks done, otherwise the last one or two get pushed out. If priority demands it, I’m introduce something new – but that’s only one thing and only because if I don’t do it now something dire will happening (like sorting out the insurance for my car the weekend before last).

Right now, I have one, and only one, priority at work – though this has sub-tasks to complete… but, there I can have a paper-based to-do that I can’t lose. For the time being, I remain retro at work and keep the to-do on the agenda and key in my mind by revisiting it daily and re-scribing it weekly. Re-writing the whole thing, I ensure new priorities get the attention they need and where nothing stands out I can make judgment calls for the week ahead based on who might be available when to have catch-up meetings with.

NOTE: I have now discovered tadalist, which I’m going to give a go. It’ll all via browser, but the site has a very friendly iPhone face that looks promising. I might actually get this bitch of a to do list online…

Posted in General | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

Network

Posted on July 29, 2010 by PaulB

Facebook might have a few issues, but social networking as a medium for restoring acquaintances I can’t argue with.

I admit freely I’m uncertain why I feel the need to restore connections… guilt, possibly. I feel that I, as a person, have never done enough to maintain the colleagues and friends I made in the past. At the time, I spent hours, days, weeks, months in their company, working, joking, drinking, gossiping. And yet, when I have moved on – leaving university or moving on from one job to another, I never seem to make the effort to take down contact details, an address, e-mail or a phone number.

Facebook provides a good start – but, I have struggled especially with old colleagues from work. Here I have found a savior in the LinkedIn website, which provides social networking with a far more business orientated spin, where Facebook seems to help more with recent work coleagues, friends and old school mates.

Guilt might have kicked the process off – but now it relies on me to do something about it. If I want to keep contact with these people who I once considered friends, I need to conscientiously rebuild these relationships. I need to build bridges and restore lines of contact, making more of the social network I have built over time to both benefit myself and perhaps do something in return. For some reason, each phase of my working life has become unnecessarily siloed – and I need to go back and do something about it.

Posted in Observations, The Internet | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off